Scarlett O'hara Quotes

He had never known such gallantry as the gallantry of Scarlett O'Hara going forth to conquer the world in her mother's velvet curtains and the tail feathers of a rooster.

I loved something I made up, something that's just as dead as Melly is. I made a pretty suit of clothes and fell in love with it. And when Ashley came riding along, so handsome, so different, I put that suit on him and made him wear it whether it fitted him or not. And I wouldn't see what he really was. I kept on loving the pretty clothes—and not him at all.

How wonderful to know someone who was bad and dishonorable and a cheat and a liar, when all the world was filled with people who would not lie to save their souls and who would rather starve than do a dishonorable deed!

She saw in his eyes defeat of her wild dreams, her mad desires.

I wish to Heaven I was married," she said resentfully as she attacked the yams with loathing. "I'm tired of everlastingly being unnatural and never doing anything I want to do. I'm tired of acting like I don't eat more than a bird, and walking when I want to run and saying I feel faint after a waltz, when I could dance for two days and never get tired. I'm tired of saying, 'How wonderful you are!' to fool men who haven't got one-half the sense I've got, and I'm tired of pretending I don't know anything, so men can tell me things and feel important while they're doing it... I can't eat another bite.

Scarlett O'Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were.

This woman is Pocahontas. She is Athena and Hera. Lying in this messy, unmade bed, eyes closed, this is Juliet Capulet. Blanche DuBois. Scarlett O'Hara. With ministrations of lipstick and eyeliner I give birth to Ophelia. To Marie Antoinette. Over the next trip of the larger hand around the face of the bedside clock, I give form to Lucrezia Borgia. Taking shape at my fingertips, my touches of foundation and blush, here is Jocasta. Lying here, Lady Windermere. Opening her eyes, Cleopatra. Given flesh, a smile, swinging her sculpted legs off one side of the bed, this is Helen of Troy. Yawning and stretching, here is every beautiful woman across history.

Life was not easy, nor was it happy, but she did not expect life to be easy, and, if it was not happy, that was woman's lot. It was a man's world, and she accepted it as such. The man owned the property, and the woman managed it. The man took credit for the management, and the woman praised his cleverness. The man roared like a bull when a splinter was in his finger, and the woman muffled the moans of childbirth, lest she disturb him. Men were rough of speech and often drunk. Women ignored the lapses of speech and put the drunkards to bed without bitter words. Men were rude and outspoken, women were always kind, gracious and forgiving.

I won't need you to rescue meM. I can take care of myself, thank you. - Scarlett O'Hara.

She could see so clearly now that he was only a childish fancy, no more important really than her spoiled desire for the aquamarine earbobs she had coaxed out of Gerald. For, once she owned the earbobs, they had lost their value, as everything except money lost its value once it was hers.

She couldn't survey the wreck of the world with an air of casual unconcern.

His voice stopped and they looked for a long quiet moment into each other's eyes and between them lay the sunny lost youth that they had so unthinkingly shared.

One of the greatest compliments my husband ever said to me was that I had the spirit and strength of a Scarlett O'Hara (from Gone with the Wind). - Strong by Kailin Gow

Fiddlesticks” is Scarlett O’Hara’s way of saying “Fuck this shit.

To Scarlett, there was something breath-taking about Ellen O'Hara, a miracle that lived in the house with her and awed her and charmed and soothed her.

[T]he merciful adjustment which nature makes when what cannot be cured must be endured.

War and marriage and childbirth had passed over her without touching any deep chord within her and she was unchanged.

You learn to forgive (the South) for its narrow mind and growing pains because it has a huge heart. You forgive the stifling summers because the spring is lush and pastel sprinkled, because winter is merciful and brief, because corn bread and sweet tea and fried chicken are every bit as vital to a Sunday as getting dressed up for church, and because any southerner worth their salt says please and thank you. It's soft air and summer vines, pine woods and fat homegrown tomatoes. It's pulling the fruit right off a peach tree and letting the juice run down your chin. It's a closeted and profound appreciation for our neighbors in Alabama who bear the brunt of the Bubba jokes. The South gets in your blood and nose and skin bone-deep. I am less a part of the South than it is part of me. It's a romantic notion, being overcome by geography. But we are all a little starry-eyed down here. We're Rhett Butler and Scarlett O'Hara and Rosa Parks all at once.

Mistress! What would I get out of that except a passel of brats?" -Scarlett O'Hara

The sun was as flirty as Scarlett O'Hara with the Tarleton twins, breaking through the clouds in spectacular bursts that seemed like personal favors and then retreating for hours, days, and making us all ache for just a glimpse.

Ashley watched her go and saw her square her small shoulders as she went. And that gesture went to his heart, more than any words she had spoken.

He would never be any different and now Scarlett realize the truth and accepted it without emotion—that until he died Gerald would always be waiting for Ellen, always listening for her. Her was in some dim borderline country where time was standing still and Ellen was always in the next room. The mainspring of his existence was taken away when she died and with it has gone his bounding assurance, his impudence and his restless vitality. Ellen was the audience before which the blustering drama of Gerald O'Hara had been played Now the curtain had been rung down forever, the footlights dimmed and the audience suddenly vanished, while the stunned old actor remained on his empty stage, waiting for his cues.

I love you, Scarlett, because we are so much alike, renegades, both of us, dear, and selfish rascals. Neither of us cares a rap if the whole world goes to pot, so long as we are safe and comfortable.

...all the bullying instincts in her nature rose to the surface. It was not that she was basically unkind. It was because she was so frightened and unsure of herself she was harsh lest others learn her inadequacies: and refuse her authority.

You must be more gentle, dear, more sedate,' Ellen told her daughter. 'You must not interrupt gentlemen when they are speaking, even if you do think you know more about matters than they do. Gentlemen do not like forward girls.

Talking to Rhett was comparable only to one thing, the feeling of ease and comfort afforded by a pair of old slippers after dancing in a pair too tight.

Suddenly she hated them all because they were different from her, because they carried their losses with an air that she could never attain, would never wish to attain. She hated them, these smiling, light-footed strangers, these proud fools who took pride in something they had lost, seeming to be proud that they had lost it.

A memory came to me. One time, in middle school, a famous author came to talk to our class and give a writing workshop. One of the things she told us about writing a novel was that the story should be about what the main character wants. Dorothy wants to go home to Kansas. George Milton wants a farm of his own. Amelia Sedley wants to marry her darling George and live happily ever after. The end of the story, according to the famous author, is when the character either gests what he wants or realizes he’s never going to get it. Or sometimes, she said, like Scarlett O’Hara in Gone With the Wind, realizes she doesn’t actually want what she thought she wanted all along. pg. 324 of Bewitching

Scarlett (O'Hara) taught that one could be hungry and despairing, but not broken and not without resources, spiritual in nature, that precluded one from surrendering without a fight

Scarlett O'Hara wasn't pretty.

It's a curse—this not wanting to look on naked realities. Until the war, life was never more real to me than a shadow show on a curtain. And I preferred it so. I did not like the outlines of things to be too sharp. I like them gently blurred, a little hazy... In other words, Scarlett, I am a coward.

Would it please you if I said your eyes were twin goldfish bowls filled to the brim with the clearest green water and that when the fish swim to the top, as they are doing now, you are devilishly charming?

She raised her chin and her pale, black-fringed eyes sparkled in the moonlight. Ellen had never told her that desire and attainment were two different matters; life had not taught her that the race was not to the swift. She lay in the silvery shadows with courage rising and made the plans that a sixteen-year-old makes when life has been so pleasant that defeat is an impossibility and a pretty dress and a clear complexion are weapons to vanquish fate.

Devon put an arm around me and curled his lips into an expression I recognized as Smirk Number One: sarcastic with a touch of I-couldn’t-care-less. “Why, Bryn,” he said with a hint of Scarlett O-Hara in his voice, “I do believe he’s given her your pen.” Devon’s words freed up my mouth, which—true to form—spoke without consulting my brain. “Well, get Freud on the phone. He’ll have a field day with this one.

I have never been the fiddle-dee-dee, carefree Scarlett O’Hara his fantasies imagined. I’m more of the Civil War version—tired, hard, and determined.

Hun smilte til fru Odell og sa: Vi får gjøre som Scarlett O'Hara, og ikke bekymre oss for morgendagen før den er her.

Scarlett O'Hara did the most courageous thing she had ever been called on to do. She faced up to failure.

She had always liked what Scarlett O'Hara said in Gone with the Wind: I'll think about it tomorrow. Not anymore.

As he slowly climbed the stairs, Cassidy looked upward and vowed in Scarlett O'Hara-like fashion, “As God is my witness, I shall never kick a man who's got my dick in his mouth again.

The dismal fact is that self-respect has nothing to do with the approval of others — who are, after all, deceived easily enough; has nothing to do with reputation, which, as Rhett Butler told Scarlett O’Hara, is something people with courage can do without. To do without self-respect, on the other hand, is to be an unwilling audience of one to an interminable documentary that deals with one’s failings, both real and imagined, with fresh footage spliced in for every screening. There’s the glass you broke in anger, there’s the hurt on X’s face; watch now, this next scene, the night Y came back from Houston, see how you muff this one. To live without self-respect is to lie awake some night, beyond the reach of warm milk, the Phenobarbital, and the sleeping hand on the coverlet, counting up the sins of commissions and omission, the trusts betrayed, the promises subtly broken, the gifts irrevocably wasted through sloth or cowardice, or carelessness. However long we postpone it, we eventually lie down alone in that notoriously uncomfortable bed, the one we make ourselves. Whether or not we sleep in it depends, of course, on whether or not we respect ourselves.

The faint of lemon verbena surrounded her, floating gently from Eleanor Butler's silk gown and silken hair. It was the fragrance that had always been part of Ellen O'Hara, the scent for Scarlett of comfort, of safety, of love, of life before the War

Indeed? Well, I shall bring you presents so long as it pleases me and so long as I see things that will enhance your charms. I shall bring you dark-green watered silk for a frock to match the bonnet. And I warn you that I am not kind. I am tempting you with bonnets and bangles and leading you into a pit. Always remember I never do anything without reason and I never give anything without expecting something in return. I always get paid.

When the dessert cart arrives, don't gaze longingly at forbidden treats. Vow that you will eat all of them sooner or later, but just not tonight. In the spirit of Scarlett O'Hara, tell yourself: Tomorrow is another taste.

Scarlett O'Hara's father, Thomas, is an Irish immigrant who names his plantation Tara, after the home of the High Kings in Ireland. In an appealing nod to the "luck of the Irish," we read that Thomas O'Hara won his lands in a card game!

Scarlett O'Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were. In her face were too sharply blended the delicate features of her mother, a Coast aristocrat of French descent, and the heavy ones of her florid Irish father. But it was an arresting face, pointed of chin, square of jaw. Her eyes were pale green without a touch of hazel, starred with bristly black lashes and slightly tilted at the ends. Above them, her thick black brows slanted upward, cutting a startling oblique line in her magnolia-white skin - that skin so prized by Southern women and so carefully guarded with bonnets, veils and mittens against hot Georgia suns.

She was less frightened also because life had taken on the quality of a dream, a dream too terrible to be real. It wasn’t possible that she, Scarlett O’Hara, should be in such a predicament, with the danger of death about her every hour, every minute. It wasn’t possible that the quiet tenor of life could have changed so completely in so short a time.

I reached our building only to find a wide-eyed Southern belle wearing a Civil Way-era dress blocking the front door. A silk parasol and a full hoopskirt completed her ensemble. I wore something like it to a costume party once, but hers was an original. Frustration was back, and now it was in my way. In the form of freaking Scarlatt O'Hara. Sighing, I stuck my hand through her stomach to turn the knob, meeting no resistance. I rolled my eyes as she gasped, fluttered her eyelashes, and disappeared in a puff of air. "You know, Scarlett, Rhett didn't give a dang, and frankly, I don't either.

And she understood. She would have done the same. She understood, too, why she'd been wrong to offer Ballyhara as a substitute for land he'd farmed all his life. It made all his work meaningless, and the work of his sons, his brothers, his father, his father's father.

I'm tired of being Scarlett O'Hara. In my next life I'm going to come back as Melanie Wilkes, fragile and helpless.

He thought as he stared at Will in the shadowy hall that he had never known such gallantry as the gallantry of Scarlett O’Hara going forth to conquer the world in her mother’s velvet curtains and the tail feathers of a rooster.

When? In Gone with the Wind, my mother’s favorite book, Scarlett O’Hara, when confronted with a difficulty, says, “I’ll think about it tomorrow … After all, tomorrow is another day.” If we are to evolve instead of revolve, it’s time to take action now.

- Não sei se interprete as suas palavras como um galanteio, se não - replicou Scarlett, indecisa. - Não se trata de nenhum galanteio - explicou ele. - Quando é que perderá essa mania de imaginar galanteios em todas as palavras que os homens lhe dirigem? - Só depois de morta - respondeu ela. E sorriu, pensando que encontraria sempre homens que lhe dirigissem piropos, mesmo que Rhett nunca o fizesse. - Presunção e água benta cada qual toma a que quer - comentou Rhett. - Graças a Deus, tem ao menos uma virtude: a de ser sincera.

His one great flaw was making the terrible and exhilarating mistake of falling in love with Scarlett O’Hara.

Tara made her charming, but the war made her Scarlett O’Hara.

the gallantry of Scarlett O’Hara going forth to conquer the world in her mother’s velvet curtains and the tail feathers of a rooster.

SCARLETT O’HARA WAS NOT BEAUTIFUL,

Scarlett O’Hara said, don’t you?” Bucky Hanson grins. “ ‘I’ll think about it tomorrow, for tomorrow is another day.

You know what Scarlett O’Hara said, don’t you?” Bucky Hanson grins. “ ‘I’ll think about it tomorrow, for tomorrow is another day.’ 

I felt like Scarlett O’Hara after she was kissed by Rhett Butler, confused and anxious and swoony and wanting it to happen again.

Miss O'Hara - I must tell you something. I - I love you!' 'Um?' said Scarlett absently.

I can't think about it right now. If I do, I'll go crazy. I'll think about it tomorrow.

You might point to Gone With the Wind and ask me to remind you which of its colorful cast was a canine, and I could say only that Scarlett O’Hara, while not a dog, was something of a bitch.

—¿Saben cual es mi historia de amor favorita? —Interrumpió la Señora Bobot. —Gone with the wind. Ahora es si que es una historia de amor. —Pero esa tampoco tiene un final feliz, —dije. —Rhett Bulter deja a Scarlett O’Hara. —Ella estaba mejor sin él, —dijo Realm. —Era un idiota. —No, no lo era, —dijo la Señora Bobot. —Scarlett estaba demasiado ciega para ver que Rhett era perfecto para ella. —Bella y Edward tuvieron un final feliz, —dije. El Reverendo frunció el ceño. —No me es familiar esa historia. —Bella acaba siendo una mama adolescente no muerta. Si eso te parece un final feliz tienes problemas, —dijo Realm.

Personally, we could call her ‘Garbage O’Hara’ for all I care. – in response to editor & friend Lois Cole’s criticism of the name Scarlett O’Hara while Gone with the Wind was in its final stages before publication.

Rhett:Frankly,my dear I don’t give a damn Scarlett O'Hara: I'll think about that tomorrow. Tomorrow is another day Scarlett O'Hara: Marriage, fun? Fiddle-dee-dee. Fun for men you mean Rhett Butler: I can't go all my life waiting to catch you between husbands. Scarlett O'Hara: As God is my witness they're are not going to lick me. I'm going to live through this and when its all over, I'll never be hungry again. No, nor any of my folk. If I have to lie, steal, cheat, or kill, as God is my witness I'll never be hungry again.

1. What do you want? This is a deceptively simple question. It can be much more difficult than we realize to give ourselves permission to know and listen to ourselves, to align ourselves with our desires. How often when we answer this question do we say what we want for someone else? I reminded Ling and Jun that they needed to answer this question for themselves. To say I want Jun to stop drinking or I want Ling to stop nagging was to avoid the question. 2. Who wants it? This is our charge and our struggle: to understand our own expectations for ourselves versus trying to live up to others’ expectations of us. My father became a tailor because his father wouldn’t allow him to become a doctor. My father was good at his profession, he was commended and awarded for it—but he was never the one who wanted it, and he always regretted his unlived dream. It’s our responsibility to act in service of our authentic selves. Sometimes this means giving up the need to please others, giving up our need for others’ approval. 3. What are you going to do about it? I believe in the power of positive thinking—but change and freedom also require positive action. Anything we practice, we become better at. If we practice anger, we’ll have more anger. If we practice fear, we’ll have more fear. In many cases, we actually work very hard to ensure that we go nowhere. Change is about noticing what’s no longer working and stepping out of the familiar, imprisoning patterns. 4. When? In Gone with the Wind, my mother’s favorite book, Scarlett O’Hara, when confronted with a difficulty, says, “I’ll think about it tomorrow. … After all, tomorrow is another day.” If we are to evolve instead of revolve, it’s time to take action now.

As to why I have made no further advances,’ he pursued blandly, as though she had not signified that the conversation was at an end, ‘I am waiting for you to grow up a little more. You see, it wouldn’t be much fun for me to kiss you now and I’m quite selfish about my pleasures. I never fancied kissing children.

Mrs. Porter was from Virginia and had a smooth-as-cat-fur way of speaking. She taught me how to say, “Fiddle-Dee-Dee,” just like Scarlett O’Hara and she made her split-pea soup with bacon and even let me try on her lipstick sometimes as she teased up my hair in the same sixties style she wore, “Ala Pricilla Presley,” whoever that was.

locale and point of focus and heroine. She leaves the great battlefields of Gettysburg and Vicksburg, Bull Run and Antietam to the others and places the Civil War in the middle of Scarlett O’Hara’s living room. She has the Northern cannons sounding beyond Peachtree Creek as Melanie Wilkes goes into labor, and has the city of Atlanta in flames as Scarlett is seized with an

With the introduction of Scarlett O’Hara and Rhett Butler, Miss Mitchell managed to create the two most famous lovers in the English-speaking world since Romeo and Juliet. Scarlett springs alive in the first sentence of the book and holds the narrative center for over a thousand pages. She is a fabulous, pixilated, one-of-a-kind creation, and she does not utter a dull line in the entire book.

But, for four years, he had seen others who had refused to recognize defeat, men who rode gaily into sure disaster because they were gallant. And they had been defeated, just the same. He thought as he stared at Will in the shadowy hall that he had never known such gallantry as the gallantry of Scarlett O’Hara going forth to conquer the world in her mother’s velvet curtains and the tail feathers of a rooster.

Through the window, in the faint light of the rising moon, Tara stretched before her, negroes gone, acres desolate, barns ruined, like a body bleeding under her eyes, like her own body, slowly bleeding. This was the end of the road, quivering old age, sickness, hungry mouths, helpless hands plucking at her skirts. And at the end of this road, there was nothing—nothing but Scarlett O’Hara Hamilton, nineteen years old, a widow with a little child.

Today was my forty-fifth birthday. Impending old age and a problem marriage were staring me in the face. Not a good place to be. I figured that right now, I had two choices — crawl out of the pit, or wallow and die. To wallow or not to wallow? That was the question. Look at Scarlett O’Hara. Did she cry and whine when Rhett walked out the door not giving a damn? Well, okay, she did. But not for long, I’ll bet. Not Scarlett. Same story here, baby, same story here.

Cat!” Rhett shook her. “Stop that. The cat’s not important. Where are the stables, Scarlett? We need horses.” “Oh, you fool,” said Scarlett. Her strained voice was heavy with loving pity. “You don’t know what you’re saying. Let me go. I’ve got to find Cat—Katie O’Hara, called Cat. She’s your daughter.” Rhett’s hands closed painfully on Scarlett’s arms. “What the devil are you talking about?” He looked down into her face, but he couldn’t make out her expression in the darkness. “Answer me, Scarlett,” he demanded, and he shook her. “Let go of me, damn you! There’s no time for explanations now. Cat must be here someplace, but it’s dark, and she’s all alone. Let go, Rhett, and ask your questions later. All that isn’t important now.” Scarlett tried to break free, but he was too strong. “It’s important to me.” His voice was rough with urgency. “All right, all right. It happened when we went sailing and the storm came. You remember. I found out I was pregnant in Savannah, but you hadn’t come for me, and I was angry, so I didn’t tell you right away. How was I to know you would be married to Anne before you could hear about the baby?” “Oh, dear God,” Rhett groaned, and he released Scarlett. “Where is she?” he said. “We’ve got to find her.” “We

I'll tell you this,though, Frankie makes me happy. So does Sadie. I don't want to canoodle with either of them, but I love them to death." "Must you use those words in my presence?" "Sorry.But.Truth:You are dead as the spat." Edward sighed. "You're right.You're absolutely right. So I suppose you'd best go to sleep, darling Ella. It's late. And,as was famously said, 'tomorrow-'" "-is another day? Thank you, Scarlett O'Hara." "Actually-" -he scowled at me- "I was going to say, 'Tomorrow comes. Tomorrow brings, tomorrow brings love, in the shape of things.'" "Shakespeare?" I asked. "Queen," he shot back. "Not nearly as good as 'Bohemian Rhapsody' or 'Fat Bottomed Girls,' but certainly poetic." "Good night, Edward." "Good night, lovely girl." I turned off the light and climbed into bed. "Oh.By the way." "Yes?" "I think I figured out why you called Diana all those nicknames. 'Spring,' 'Cab,' 'Post'..." "Yes?" "They're all things you wait for. I think Diana was making you wait, and it was making you crazy. Am I right?" "Oh,Ella. You know I can't tell you that. I will,however, leave you with one more lovely old chestnut-" "'All good things are worth waiting for?'" "I really wish you would let me finish a thought tonight. I was going to say, 'Ain't nothing like the real thing, baby.'" "Marvin Gaye," I said. "The one and only.

I freely admit that the best of my fun, I owe it to Horse and Hound - Whyte Melville (1821-1878) "Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more; Or close the wall up with our English dead. In peace there's nothing so becomes a man As modest stillness and humility: But when the blast of war blows in our ears, Then imitate the action of the tiger; Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood, Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage; Then lend the eye a terrible aspect; Let pry through the portage of the head Like the brass cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm it As fearfully as doth a galled rock O'erhang and jutty his confounded base, Swill'd with the wild and wasteful ocean. Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide, Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit To his full height. On, on, you noblest English. Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof! Fathers that, like so many Alexanders, Have in these parts from morn till even fought And sheathed their swords for lack of argument: Dishonour not your mothers; now attest That those whom you call'd fathers did beget you. Be copy now to men of grosser blood, And teach them how to war. And you, good yeoman, Whose limbs were made in England, show us here The mettle of your pasture; let us swear That you are worth your breeding; which I doubt not; For there is none of you so mean and base, That hath not noble lustre in your eyes. I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips, Straining upon the start. The game's afoot: Follow your spirit, and upon this charge Cry 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!" ... King Henry V 1598 (William Shakespeare) I can resist anything except temptation - Oscar Wilde (Lady Windermere's Fan, 1892) In order to be irreplaceable, one must always be different - Coco Chanel When it comes to pain and suffering, she's right up there with Elizabeth Taylor - Truvy (Steel Magnolias) She looks too pure to be pink (Rizzo, Grease) I can't think about that right now. If I do, I'll go crazy. I'll think about that tomorrow - Scarlett O'Hara (Gone With The Wind.)

Anyone who’s spent time below the Mason-Dixon line knows this truth: Southern women are anything but ordinary. Our unique, often unspoken code of conduct has allowed us to survive good times and bad, and never lose the sense of who we are. Margaret Mitchell, the belle of Southern female writers, got it right when she had Scarlett O’Hara come down the stairs in a dress made out of curtains: a Southern girl knows that pride and endurance always come before vanity. Our character is both created by, and essential to, the fabric of our society. Without the strength of the Southern girl, the South couldn’t have survived its rich and rocky history; without history, on the other hand, the Southern girl wouldn’t be who she is today. It’s sometimes suggested (by Yankees, we’d wager) that Grits are one-dimensional. This is not surprising: those who don’t understand us see only our outward devotion to femininity and charm. What they are missing is the fact that, like the magnolia tree, our beautiful blossoms are the outward expression of the strength that lies beneath.

Cat!” Rhett shook her. “Stop that. The cat’s not important. Where are the stables, Scarlett? We need horses.” “Oh, you fool,” said Scarlett. Her strained voice was heavy with loving pity. “You don’t know what you’re saying. Let me go. I’ve got to find Cat—Katie O’Hara, called Cat. She’s your daughter.” Rhett’s hands closed painfully on Scarlett’s arms. “What the devil are you talking about?” He looked down into her face, but he couldn’t make out her expression in the darkness. “Answer me, Scarlett,” he demanded, and he shook her. “Let go of me, damn you! There’s no time for explanations now. Cat must be here someplace, but it’s dark, and she’s all alone. Let go, Rhett, and ask your questions later. All that isn’t important now.” Scarlett tried to break free, but he was too strong. “It’s important to me.” His voice was rough with urgency. “All right, all right. It happened when we went sailing and the storm came. You remember. I found out I was pregnant in Savannah, but you hadn’t come for me, and I was angry, so I didn’t tell you right away. How was I to know you would be married to Anne before you could hear about the baby?” “Oh, dear God,” Rhett groaned, and he released Scarlett. “Where is she?” he said. “We’ve got to find her.

It’s my turn next, and I realize then that I never turned in the name of my escort--because I hadn’t planned on being here. I glance around wildly for Ryder, but he’s nowhere to be seen, swallowed up by the sea of people in cocktail dresses and suits. Crap. I thought he realized that escorting me on court was part of the deal, once I’d agreed to go. I guess he’d figured it’d be easier on me, what with the whole Patrick thing, if I was alone onstage. But I don’t want to be alone. I want Ryder with me. By my side, supporting me. Always. I finally spot him in the crowd--it’s not too hard, since he’s a head taller than pretty much everyone else--and our eyes meet. My stomach drops to my feet--you know, that feeling you get on a roller coaster right after you crest that first hill and start plummeting toward the ground. Oh my God, this can’t be happening. I’ve fallen in love with Ryder Marsden, the boy I’m supposed to hate. And it has nothing to do with his confession, his declaration that he loves me. Sure, it might have forced me to examine my feelings faster than I would have on my own, but it was there all along, taking root, growing, blossoming. Heck, it’s a full-blown garden at this point. “Our senior maid is Miss Jemma Cafferty!” comes the principal’s voice. “Jemma is a varsity cheerleader, a member of the Wheelettes social sorority, the French Honor Club, the National Honor Society, and the Peer Mentors. She’s escorted tonight by…ahem, sorry. I’m afraid there’s no escort, so we’ll just--” “Ryder Marsden,” I call out as I make my way across the stage. “I’m escorted by Ryder Marsden.” The collective gasp that follows my announcement is like something out of the movies. I swear, it’s just like that scene in Gone with the Wind where Rhett offers one hundred and fifty dollars in gold to dance with Scarlett, and she walks through the scandalized bystanders to take her place beside Rhett for the Virginia reel. Only it’s the reverse. I’m standing here doing the scandalizing, and Ryder’s doing the walking. “Apparently, Jemma’s escort is Ryder Marsden,” the principal ad-libs into the microphone, looking a little frazzled. “Ryder is…um…the starting quarterback for the varsity football team, and, um…in the National Honor Society and…” She trails off helplessly. “A Peer Mentor,” he adds helpfully as he steps up beside me and takes my hand. The smile he flashes in my direction as Mrs. Crawford places the tiara on my head is dazzling--way more so than the tiara itself. My knees go a little weak, and I clutch him tightly as I wobble on my four-inch heels. But here’s the thing: If the crowd is whispering about me, I don’t hear it. I’m aware only of Ryder beside me, my hand resting in the crook of his arm as he leads me to our spot on the stage beside the junior maid and her escort, where we wait for Morgan to be crowned queen. Oh, there’ll be hell to pay tomorrow. I have no idea what we’re going to tell our parents. Right now I don’t even care. Just like Scarlett O’Hara, I’m going to enjoy myself tonight and worry about the rest later. After all, tomorrow is another…Well, you know how the saying goes.

He picked her up. Picked her up and carried her, as if she were Scarlett O’Hara and he were Rhett Butler, if Rhett had been the kind of guy to go down on Scarlett in a doorway. Which, let’s be honest, he probably was.

Why is it a girl has to be so silly to catch a husband?

This is not a fucking garden party, you are not Scarlett O'Hara

Ainsi, j'ai aimé une chose qui n'existait pas.

She looks a little like Scarlett O’Hara after she made a dress of her mother’s drapes. Excellent, another useless recollection. Reticules and drapes. Catherine

Layne took him to Monteigne, a stunning Italianate mansion on twenty-three acres. The owner, Mary Louise Shields, a steel magnolia who lived to be 109, showed Kevin Kline a quilt and said, “Now this belonged to Scarlett O’Hara.” Layne is no stickler for factual accuracy, but this was too much for him. He said, “Honey, she’s a fictional character.” Miss Mary Louise said, “We do believe that to be true.” Layne lost his temper. “She’s from a fucking movie!” She said, “Honey, if you’re not enjoying the tour, why don’t you step off the back porch?

And so, with a slow sweep of the arm that remained forever etched in my memory, he took out a match, lit it, and tossed it onto the pile of books. With a quiet huff...ff...ff the flames rippled over the pages, catching first the old books with the brown paper whose smell I loved so much. I vividly remember how Danko's Burning Heart was engulfed in flames that then licked at Luce's skirt who, desperately trying to protect herself from the fire in pages of Romain Rolland's book, held Pierre tightly to her breast. I watched as the fire spread to the intertwined lovers Pierre and Natasha, Heathcliff and Cathrine Earnshaw, Scarlett O'Hara and Rhett Butler, Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy, abelard and Heloise, Tristan and Isolde, Salaman and Absal, Vis and Ramin, Vamegh and Azra, Zohreh and Manuchehr, shirin and Farhad, Leyli and Majnun, Arthur and Gemma, the Rose and the Little Prince, before they had the chance to smell or kiss each other again, or whisper. "I love you" one last time.

After all, tomorrow is another day.

steel magnolia \stē(ǝ)l mag-‘nōl-yǝ \ n: a Southern woman who has weathered tragedy and heartache while retaining pride, dignity, and a love of life; often used to describe an older woman who has taken it upon herself to teach the younger generation the Southern way of life; one of the highest honors a Grits can achieve. Ex.: Scarlett O’Hara

We continued our drive, not making any permanent decisions that day about where we’d live. We’d been engaged less than twenty-four hours, after all; there was no huge rush. When we finally returned to his house, we curled up on his couch and watched a movie. Gone With the Wind, of all things. He was a fan. And as I lay there that afternoon and watched the South crumble around Scarlett O’Hara’s knees for what had to have been the 304th time in my life, I touched the arms that held me so sweetly and securely…and I sighed contentedly, wondering how on earth I’d ever found this person. When he walked me to my car late that afternoon, minutes after Scarlett had declared that tomorrow is another day, Marlboro Man rested his hands lightly on my waist. He caressed my rib cage up and down, touching his forehead to mine and closing his eyes--as if he were recording the moment in his memory. And it tickled like crazy, his fingertips on my ribs, but I didn’t care; I was engaged to this man, I told myself, and there’ll likely be much rib caressing in the future. I needed to toughen up, to be able to withstand such displays of romance without my knees buckling beneath me and without my forgetting my mother’s maiden name and who my first grade teacher had been. Otherwise I had lots of years of trouble--and decreased productivity--ahead. So I stood there and took it, closing my eyes as well and trying with all my might to will away the ticklish sensations. They had no place here. Begone, Satan! Ree, hold strong. My mind won, and we stood there and continued to thumb our nose at the reality that we were two separate bodies…and the western sun behind us changed from yellow to orange to pink to a brilliant, impossible red--the same color as the ever-burning fire between us. On the drive home, my whole torso felt warm. Like when you’ve awakened from the most glorious dream you’ve ever had, and you’re still half-in, half-out, and you still feel the dream and it’s still real. I forced myself to think, to look around me, to take it all in. One day, I told myself as I drove down that rural country road, I’m going to be driving down a road like this to run to the grocery store in town…or pick up the mail on the highway…or take my kids to cell lessons.

the remnants of her Georgia drawl always sounded a bit sad. She made him think of an aging Scarlett O’Hara torn from Tara’s halls but clinging to her pride and, with the help of a beauty parlor, her flaming hair.

They wore fashions that broadcast the fact that they were much sturdier and more mature than the little flapper. (If they were going to carry the world on their shoulders, those shoulders had better be padded ones.) They could take care of themselves at a time when men couldn’t be counted on. The ultimate heroine of the decade, Scarlett O’Hara, could do anything except pick the right man—she was, as one critic pointed out, a flapper in reverse, a woman who broke all the rules except the ones about sex.

At the same time, black entertainers have long been rewarded and often restricted to roles that adhere to caste stereotype. The first African-American to win an Academy Award, Hattie McDaniel, was commended for her role as Mammy, a solicitous and obesely desexed counterpoint to Scarlett O’Hara, the feminine ideal, in the 1939 film Gone with the Wind. The Mammy character was more devoted to her white family than to her own, willing to fight black soldiers to protect her white enslaver.

We met just a few minutes ago and he's already making fun of how I talk," I say. "All required ingredients in a recipe for success." "Don't get your petticoats in a twist, Scarlett O'Hara," Benny shoots back. "I'm twice as rude to people I actually know.

Scarlett's father, Gerald O'Hara rebukes Scarlett: SCARLETT! YOU DON'T WANT THE LAND - TARA!!! WHY---TO ANYONE WITH A DROP OF IRISH BLOOD---THE LAND IS LIKE THEIR MOTHER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

She obviously never thought deeply about something she did so naturally, as naturally as breathing: avoiding reality until it was absolutely necessary to face it. Was it just her or her entire generation? Had they all become Scarlett O’Haras, deciding they would worry about it tomorrow?

I'd like to be kissed the way that Rhett Butler, in fact, kissed Scarlett O'Hara while Atlanta burned. I'd like to be held the way that Heathcliff held Catherine on the moors. I'd like a passion so explosive it could burn down Thornfield Hall. I'd like a man to look at me with the whole world in his eyes and know exactly what to do with the rest of him to please me. - Ave Maria Mulligan, Big Stone Gap

The terrible suffering among the freed slaves during Reconstruction has been overshadowed, in popular literature and film, by the fall of the white planters, exemplified by the figure of Scarlett O'Hara.

Elliott’s Saturday is Scarlett O’Hara’s tomorrow.

caught in a Scarlett O’Hara loop of promising herself that she would think about it tomorrow.

I will never go anywhere with vampires again, I promised myself. I let the lure of the money and the excitement of the travel pull me in. But I won’t do that again. As God is my witness . . . Then I had to laugh out loud. Scarlett O’Hara, I wasn’t. “I’ll never be hungry again,